The Grand County High School’s December students of the month are senior Cadence Elizabeth Ballard (parents: Caitlin and Bryan Ballard) and junior Trace Jack York (parents: Summer and Klint York).
Cadence Elizabeth Ballard
Cadence’s favorite class was also her most challenging high school course: chemistry with Ms. Reed. She said that the concepts were difficult to understand without putting in extra work to grasp the course content.
“It was a class where I really had to apply myself to succeed, and the reward I got was an A all three trimesters!” Cadence said.
Candence also takes college-level courses through concurrent enrollment, which she said are difficult more due to the extra workload they put on her.
Cadence has been on the Grand County High School Drill Team for four years, serving as team choreographer in her junior year and dance captain is also on the All-State drill team.
“I played soccer too!” she said.
Cadence is finishing up her senior year, and plans to head to either Westminster University or the University of Utah to study psychology.
“I’ve learned that learning how to learn is the most important thing to learn!” she said of her time at Grand County High School.
Cadence’s advice to those still in high school is simple:
“Go to every dance, game, and activity and enjoy every moment! High school is so much fun if you participate!”
Trace Jack York
GCHS junior Trace’s favorite class is Sports Theory right now.
“It keeps me in shape and makes me a better player at the sports I do,” he said. “I also like my Honors Math class because I love solving problems that take multiple steps to finish.”
Trace plays golf, baseball, basketball, and track which makes his schedule extremely busy. “I also played football until I had a bad accident in a game, where I broke my femur,” he said.
His many committments made his business law class a challenge.
“I missed a lot of days because of golf matches, which had me behind almost the whole semester,” said Trace. “But it was a class I really enjoyed because of the people who were in it and Mr. Black.”
Trace is also a member of the National Honor Society and helps do service for his church, and puts in time working at Packard’s Wholesale.
After finishing up his time at GCHS, Trace intends to get a scholarship for baseball and pursue a degree in engineering.
His philosophy?
“Do what you love most, because you never know when it could be taken away,” he said.
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